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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E684-E685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF TERRY SLOAN
______
HON. EMANUEL CLEAVER
of missouri
in the house of representatives
Monday, July 27, 2020
Mr. CLEAVER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate Terry Sloan
for thirty-two years of federal service, including five years as the
National Records Center Director within the Department of Homeland
Security's United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Prior to joining USCIS in 2008, Ms. Sloan held various legal and
leadership positions within the Department of Defense and the
Department of Commerce. Recognized as an outstanding public servant
throughout her illustrious career, Ms. Sloan's long list of
accomplishments have been celebrated with several prestigious awards,
including the Department of the Army Civilian Service Achievement
Medal. Once named the USCIS Manager of the Year, Ms. Sloan was
appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2015, making her a civil-
service equivalent to a general officer within the United States
military. Having served the US, federal government for over three
decades, including a half-decade at the helm of the USCIS National
Records Center, Ms. Sloan's example of leadership and public service is
well-worth reflecting upon.
Lee's Summit, Missouri became home to the USCIS National Records
Center in 1999, when the country's most extensive collection of
immigrant records was moved to a limestone cave sixty feet below
ground. Currently holding nearly sixty-million immigrant files, another
one-and-a-half million records are added each year to the countless
shelves within this four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand square foot
repository. Among these, the National Records Center houses the
immigration files belonging to highly acclaimed cultural icons who
immigrated to the United States, including John Lennon, Salvador Dali,
and Elizabeth Taylor. Receiving over six hundred FOIA requests each
day, the USCIS National Records Center documents contain our country's
immigration history through the eyes of individual immigrants who
journeyed across the globe before stepping foot on American shores, As
new files arrive at the National Records Center by the truckload, the
eight hundred employees and contractors employed within the vast
facility work around the clock to retrieve documents needed to
determine immigrant status for granting government benefits.
As the Director of the USCIS National Records Center, Ms. Sloan had
the profound responsibility of managing this immense, ever-growing
repository to ensure that the history of immigration to the United
States is properly archived, made accessible to the public, and
preserved for future generations. In 2016, while serving as the
National Records Center's Director, Ms. Sloan oversaw efforts to locate
photographs of five immigrants who lost their lives in the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center. For fifteen years, it had proved
impossible to find images of these five individuals. However, when Ms.
Sloan and the team she oversaw was put to the task, portraits of all
five victims were quickly discovered and then shipped to the National
September 11 Memorial and Museum for public display--a
[[Page E685]]
striking testament to the record center's archival excellence. Ms.
Sloan has promoted innovation and efficiency through strategic
initiatives such as document digitization, the proactive disclosure of
records, and the use of modern case-processing technology. Ms. Sloan
championed the Freedom of Information Act Immigration Records System,
otherwise known as FIRST--the only government-used, end-to-end,
automated, electronic FOIA system that allows users to submit and track
FOIA requests and receive their documents digitally.
Madam Speaker, please join me in commemorating thirty-two years of
public service from Ms. Terry Sloan. At the base of the Statue of
Liberty, a poem written by Emma Lazarus welcomes people from all lands
with the promise of the United States. ``Give me your tired, your poor,
/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore,'' the poem reads. Thanks to the service of Ms.
Terry Sloan, the millions of people who embraced those words as they
made way to America will have their history preserved for future
generations of scholars, authors, genealogists, and curious
descendants.
____________________